Trending stocks rarely move in a straight line, but instead in a step-like pattern. For example, a stock might go up for several days, followed by a few steps back during the next few days before heading north again. If several of these zig-zag patterns are strung together, and the chart appears to be moving higher with some degree of predictability, the stock is said to be in an uptrend.
Another risk of swing trading is that sudden reversals can create losing positions. Because you are not trading all throughout the day, it can be easy to be caught off guard if price trends do not play out as planned. To decrease the risk of this happening, we recommend issuing stop orders with every new position. Stop orders can help you “lock-in” your gains and can also help you cut your losses.

Most of our students adopt either my Momentum or Reversal Day Trading Strategies. Once you choose the one that is a good match for your skill level, your risk management tolerance, and the time of day you plan to trade, you are ready to get started. Students in our Day Trading Course can download our written trading plan documents and I’m able to actually oversee them while they are trading.

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It is important to understand the fundamentals of intraday trading in order to make consistent profits. A good tip is to trade with the current market trend. If the market is falling, sell first and buy later, and vice versa. Make an intraday trade plan and stick to the plan. Set your desired profit and stop-loss limit. Do not be greedy. Instead, book your profits at regular intervals. Maintain stop-loss levels. It helps you to limit your loss if the market does not perform. Also, choose highly liquid shares and trade in a small number of shares at a time, if you are not a seasoned trader.
This strategy is mostly only done by day traders. It requires that you have access to one to several real-time news sources and can make split second decisions. News and rumors can provide large amounts of volatility and high emotion creating great opportunities if traded properly. The biggest challenge of trading this strategy is anticipating the market’s reaction to the news and how it effects the price of the stock. Click here for more information on trading news and rumors.
Day trading is traditionally defined as buying and selling stock, options, or commodities during the same trading day and be have your positions closed by the end of the trading session. In the past, day trading had been reserved for financial companies and professional investors. A large percentage of day traders work for investment firms or are specialists in fund management. With the advance of technology, day trading has continue to grow among the casual trader working from home.
This combination of factors has made day trading in stocks and stock derivatives (such as ETFs) possible. The low commission rates allow an individual or small firm to make a large number of trades during a single day. The liquidity and small spreads provided by ECNs allow an individual to make near-instantaneous trades and to get favorable pricing.

Range trading, or range-bound trading, is a trading style in which stocks are watched that have either been rising off a support price or falling off a resistance price. That is, every time the stock hits a high, it falls back to the low, and vice versa. Such a stock is said to be "trading in a range", which is the opposite of trending.[13] The range trader therefore buys the stock at or near the low price, and sells (and possibly short sells) at the high. A related approach to range trading is looking for moves outside of an established range, called a breakout (price moves up) or a breakdown (price moves down), and assume that once the range has been broken prices will continue in that direction for some time.

A day trader often closes all trades before the end of the trading day, so not to hold open positions overnight. A day traders' effectiveness may be limited by the bid-ask spread, trading commissions, as well as expenses for real-time news feeds and analytics software. Successful day trading requires extensive knowledge and experience. Day traders employ a variety of methods to make trading decisions. Some traders employ computer trading models that use technical analysis to calculate favorable probabilities, while some trade on their instinct.
This trading strategy used to be defined as spread trading where you would take profits where small gaps expanded and contracted between the bid and the ask price for a stock. This strategy has now evolved to include technical indicators, support/resistance levels, and volume spikes to make round-trip trades lasting seconds to a few minutes. The basic idea of scalping is to take advantage of market inefficiencies using speed and high trading volume to create quick profits. Click here for more information on scalping.
The second type of scalping is done by purchasing a large number of shares that are sold for a gain on a very small price movement. A trader of this style will enter into positions for several thousand shares and wait for a small move, which is usually measured in cents. Such an approach requires highly liquid stock to allow for entering and exiting 3,000 to 10,000 shares easily.

Scalping is a trading strategy geared towards profiting from minor price changes in a stock's price. Traders who implement this strategy place anywhere from 10 to a few hundred trades in a single day with the belief that small moves in stock price are easier to catch than large ones; traders who implement this strategy are known as scalpers. Many small profits can easily compound into large gains, if a strict exit strategy is used to prevent large losses.

The first EMA (50) must be positioned above the second EMA (100). When this has occurred, it is essential to wait until the price comes back to the EMAs. In turn, the Stochastic Oscillator is exploited to cross over the 20 level from below. The moment you observe the three items arranged in the proper way, opening a long (buy) order may be an option.
There are two primary divisions of professional day traders: those who work alone and/or those who work for a larger institution. Most day traders who trade for a living work for a large institution. These traders have an advantage because they have access to a direct line, a trading desk, large amounts of capital and leverage, expensive analytical software, and much more. These traders are typically looking for easy profits that can be made from arbitrage opportunities and news events, and these resources allow them to capitalize on these less risky day trades before individual traders can react.
Scalping is a fast-paced activity for nimble traders. It requires precision timing and execution. Scalpers use day trading buying power of four to one margin to maximize profits with the most shares in the shortest amount of holding time. This requires focusing on the smaller time frame interval charts such as the one-minute and five-minute candlestick charts. Momentum indicators such as stochastic, moving average convergence divergence (MACD) and relative strength index (RSI) are commonly used. Price chart indicators such as moving averages, Bollinger bands and pivot points are used as reference points for price support and resistance levels.
Many swing traders assess trades on a risk/reward basis. By analyzing the chart of an asset they determine where they will enter, where they will place a stop loss, and then anticipate where they can get out with a profit. If they are risking $1 per share on a setup that could reasonably produce a $3 gain, that is a favorable risk/reward. On the other hand, risking $1 to make $1 or only make $0.75 isn't as favorable.

Define and write down the conditions under which you'll enter a position. "Buy during uptrend" isn't specific enough. Something like this is much more specific and also testable: "Buy when price breaks above the upper trendline of a triangle pattern, where the triangle was preceded by an uptrend (at least one higher swing high and higher swing low before the triangle formed) on the two-minute chart in the first two hours of the trading day."